HUNTED

I saw the lightening, and then thunder


And everyone made haste for the inner stable

Touched to make way, brought me back from recall

And I prayed the god to fill the empty void in my heart



My window shows the surrounding hills on that day

The trees, dark mysterious, off darker green

Moving father off, the houses huts in brownies

Mud, palm trees, rafter tach, gradually replaced



The vehicle squiggle up the top of the height

Ricketily, clangorously, groaningly, labouringly

Bellowing from the exhaust obscured the rear view

Some we taste and choked



So many households empting of able-bodied youths

All in haste to clean out their forefather’s footprint

What would happen to the time, tide and stories?

Heard and told under tree and around burn fires



Some say someday we still may sing them

Able to relight the fire with foreign films and strings

Restoring the lingering desire of deserted hearts

And bring succour to those in foreign lonesome dead bed





But you can’t, I said, sit on foreign mat to break the palm kernel

To eat, milk and taste the creamy crux and its juicy flavour

To felicitate and greet the crawling cricket and other neighbours

Banish minor ailments by plucking and picking fruits off trees



No. I know I’ll forever be lost

For without them; my past, my sylvan sustenance

I’ll never be me; never can be nursed

Not by the foreign crappers, beam and gleam or tar